Posted at 11:57 AM ET, 01/30/2013
The case of transgender Catholic school teacher Mark Krolikowski: Keeping the faith while gender notions evolve
By Jim Fitzgerald
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/guest-voices/post/the-case-of-transgender-catholic-school-teacher-mark-krolikowski-keeping-the-faith-while-gender-notions-evolve/2013/01/30/8b70051e-6a6a-11e2-af53-7b2b2a7510a8_blog.htmlMark Krolikowski wore his hair at shoulder length, his nails long and well manicured, and his ears pierced. His appearance, which evolved over the 32 years he'd spent teaching at St. Francis Preparatory School in Queens, had always been considered a bit unconventional for a Catholic school teacher, but it had caused no problems until October 2011 when the parent of a freshman student complained, setting in motion a series of events that culminated in Krolikowski's dismissal.
The former teacher says he was laid off because he informed school officials that he was transgender. He has filed suit. The school's attorney says Krolikowski was fired for "nondiscriminatory reasons."
[...]
As Catholics, we regret that the leaders of our church and other conservative Christian organizations are leading the fight to deny transgender people their full human dignity and equal treatment under the law. In a recent address, Pope Benedict XVI argued against the very concept of gender, saying that one's sexual identity is determined entirely by one's biology.
The pope's position is not universally shared by Catholics or by other people of faith. The Rev. Cameron Partridge, a leading transgender theologian and the Episcopal chaplain at Boston University, has written that much of the church has "come to accept that God made us in more varieties than typical 'masculine' males and 'feminine' females who are to be paired only in 'opposite' gender couples. This insight helps us understand how we are created as part of a sexual/gender spectrum: people who marry people of the "opposite" sex; people who do not marry, including celibate religious; women who never give birth, by choice or necessity; people whose expressions of gender exceed the norms of their cultures; people born with a combination of female and male bodily traits; gay, lesbian or bisexual people; transgender people."
--------
Mark Krolikowski transgender teacher suit: Takes St. Francis Preparatory School to court
He alleges discrimination
Posted: 01/30/2013
By: Moni Basu CNN
http://www.wptv.com/dpp/news/national/mark-krolikowski-transgender-teacher-suit-takes-st-francis-preparatory-school-to-court(CNN) -- Mark Krolikowski has shoulder-length brown hair. He likes to wear multiple earrings and French manicure his nails. Students call him Mr. K.
Krolikowski, 59, taught for 32 years at St. Francis Preparatory School, a 140-year-old Catholic institution in Queens, New York.
Until August. That's when the school laid him off.
He alleges that he was discriminated against because he is transgender and that the school's attitude toward him changed in the eight months after he came out.
He recently filed a lawsuit saying the school and its principal, Leonard Conway, broke the law with his termination and that as a result, Krolikowski has been financially and emotionally distressed.
